Nashville Scene used to boast a film writer named Jim Ridley. He’s about my age and he passed away a few years ago. Came across a compilation of his writing over the weekend called People Only Die Of Love In The Movies. In it, there’s his short piece on Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo (1959).
You may know by now that Rio Bravo is my favorite Western. I’m not gonna say it’s the best necessarily, but if I was headed to the electric chair and I got to watch one Western before they threw the switch, that’d be the one I’d pick (and not because of its long-ish running time).
Anyway, Mr. Ridley nailed Rio Bravo. What makes it special. What it is about it that’s so different. After reading his piece, I thought I would’ve loved to have met him for coffee or lunch somewhere just to geek out on Rio Bravo. That woulda really been something.
“After the big-budget thud of Land Of The Pharaohs, Howard Hawks emerged from a three-year sabbatical, including a stay in Paris and a purposeful study of TV drama, to create his 1959 rifle opera: a laid-back yet hard-headed response to the sanctimonious High Noon — which pissed off the director because no lawman worth his badge would ask civilians to risk their hides doing his job. The result is an irresistible ode to loyalty, cool under fire and masculine honor — which in the Hawks universe extends even to Angie Dickinson’s stand-up saloon girl.”
“Perhaps the most purely enjoyable Western ever made, Rio Bravo only deepens with age and repeated viewing, right down to the genial juxtaposition of Martin’s slouch and Wayne’s saunter. It’s doubtful another American movie has ever taken so much interest in the way its characters walk — or understood why it matters.”
Mr. Ridley, I’m sure sorry we never got to talk Rio Bravo. Would’ve been a blast.
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